


Burn Notice

by Zzxya



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:18:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2533904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zzxya/pseuds/Zzxya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Single father Levi Ackerman never thought his life was anything special mostly because, well, it really wasn’t. That is, until a certain blue-eyed firefighter nothing short of a marble sculpted Adonis, of all the fucking people, literally broke down the door to his apartment and turned his bland little world upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn Notice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pomodoro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomodoro/gifts).



> School's got me down me down big time so I decided to get my ass in gear and write some ridiculous fluff. Purely self-indulgent and I also wanted to incorporate some adorable ideas I've seen on Tumblr. No beta because I wrote this in like two days, so all mistakes are mine and I'm sure there's plenty. Don't expect too much, it's more of a drabble then anything particularly serious. Have fun with whatever this mess is yo.

“Mikasa, now!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” A level voice accompanied by the soft pitter patter of tiny footsteps echoes down the creaking wooden stairs. Levi, dressed in heavy winter garb, (ready for winter fuck yeah) swings the car keys on his index finger and watches as his daughter plops on the bottom of the stairs, “Geez, Dad I said I was coming.”

“Don’t give me that attitude; I’m the one driving you, I can _accidently_ forget what time school gets out.” Levi deadpans still swinging the keys. Mikasa, having long since become immune to his impassive death-stare (as she likes to call it), simply returns the pointed stare. 

“You wouldn’t do that.” She huffs, crossing her arms. Levi couldn’t help letting a tiny grin slip past his lips at her pouting display as he knelt down.

“No, honey, I wouldn’t. You know me too well,” He ruffles her hair and kisses her forehead which does nothing to remove the stubborn pout on her lips, “Get your coat on, we’re going to be late.” He says, ushering her out the door.

The winter air is enough to make any man’s balls blue as they make their way out the hall and down the steps to the sidewalk where their SUV is parked along the curb. Levi drives carefully through the gross ass murky slush that accumulated over night, keeping an eye on Mikasa out of his peripheral.

Within ten minutes they’ve arrived at school and the dark haired girl’s pout has returned full force, her arms once again crossed and her mouth drawn in a tight line.

“What’s wrong now?” Levi says, bracing himself to be told she forgot her homework or something ridiculous like that.

“I don’t like school.” She mutters, barely above a whisper into her jacket, “The other kids say I’m ‘too strong’ and that ‘I act like a man’.”

Levi, taken back by this new information, stares at his daughter with shock. Too strong? Fuck, is that even supposed to be an insult? Well, clearly it was if Mikasa had taken it as so but still.

“Well if they’re saying shit like that show them just how strong you are.” She looks over at him instead of down at her hands, and although her face gives no indication, there is a manic sparkle in her stormy eyes, intrigued with his advice. He gives her a quick wink that anyone else wouldn’t have noticed.

“So you won’t get mad if I hit them?” She asks, eyes full of wonder that only a child is capable of. If any other adult saw they would probably think she had lost her mind. _Ha, that’s my girl._

“No, why would I?”

She smiles big for the first time in like, a month, and then suddenly she looks guilty – a look Mikasa doesn’t give often. Levi narrows his eyes in question. _Aw shit, this can’t be good._

“What?”

“Well I … uh … already got in trouble for hitting this one kid and I didn’t give you the slip the office gave me because I thought that –”

“Way to go kiddo.” He says simply. If she’s kicking ass because some punks think they’re all that, then by God fuck the public education system; it’s messed up beyond repair anyways. Mikasa’s forlorn look of despair is gone now, replaced by a sly grin that looks strikingly similar to his own.

“You don’t mind?” She asks, clearly shocked at the lack of retribution.

“Why would I?” He echoes, “You have good judgment, maybe the kid needed a little knock on the head.”

She’s beaming now, clearly satisfied she hasn’t been punished. Now 1) this probably isn’t A+ parenting, 2) he really doesn’t give a shit, and 3) if he told her to be more docile what the hell would that have done? Made her spineless? Weak? Fuck that. His daughter wasn’t going to be a pushover, no sir not in this life or any.

She fiddles with the car door, giddy with excitement and the prospect of kicking some major ass. He’s never been more proud. She throws a quick ‘thanks Dad’ over her shoulder as she walks up to the entrance to school, disappearing within the crowd of munchkins in seconds.

Levi sighs, remembering the fact that once he gets home he has to start on that one article as well as editing the entire business section of the paper Zackly so kindly demanded of him. The conversation went something more along the lines of ‘What the fuck makes you think I’m going to do that?’ and ‘Unless you want to put bread on the table for yourself and that little girl of yours you will.’ which in Levi’s opinion is more like how a mob is run rather than a newspaper company.

You’ve got to take what life throws at you and Levi feels like that’s all he can do lately. Bills, work, friends; it’s all a hand dealt to him in this wild game of cards called life. The only constant he has is Mikasa and even she’s growing up faster than he can count the inches she’s adding on her height every day.

He’s getting too old for this shit, this thing called life.

Or maybe he just hasn’t gotten laid in a while.

Either way it’s stressful as fuck.

The drive home goes by in a flash of muddy color and silence and the next thing Levi knows he’s standing in the middle of his apartment staring at the floor. The voice of his inner couch-potato is telling him to sit the fuck down and stop stressing but the responsible, more dominate, part of his is telling him to make some damn breakfast and get to work.

This internal battle lasts for about five whole seconds and he’s in the study, sifting through stacks of paper and turning on the two computers. After logging in and checking his e-mail, he gets started on the article with the mindset of ‘I’ll spend ten minutes on this then I’ll eat’ and goes to work. It’s 8:00 a.m. He’ll eat at 8:10, no big deal.

He’s only reminded that he hasn’t eaten when his stomach lurches uncomfortably and groans loud enough to startle him from the Word document that had consumed his focus. He looks at the clock to see it displays 10:52 a.m. and nearly shits himself.

Almost three hours! Three whole fucking hours!

He scrambles to get up, to be free, to _eat_ , narrowly making it to the kitchen without tripping on the coffee table or slipping on the tiles. With death avoided and all his grace depleted he starts some eggs and toast, realizing about half way through that he’s still in his pajamas and while working at home does have some perks, he really hates the feeling of wearing something you sleep in outside of your bed.

He goes to change quickly, opting for a pair of jeans and v-neck before returning to the kitchen. It’s then that he hears the all too familiar ding of his phone and while he fears that it may be Zackly bitching about whatever the fuck he feels the need to bitch about, he goes to check anyways. Turns out its Hanji asking for a document he’s not even sure he has, so he begins searching through the pile next to his desk. Surprisingly, he finds it a couple of minutes later buried under a heap of old files he really needs to throw away and goes to make a copy so he can send it to Hanji, the fucking wench, over e-mail.

A shrill sound suddenly pierces through the silence of the apartment, causing Levi to jump and nearly destroy his desk in the process. The smell of something burning is the last thing that registers with his senses, hardly able to connect the dots over the terrifying screech of the fire alarm.

Levi books it to the kitchen, his eyes stinging due to the heavy smoke that has accumulated in the tiny room. He can barely make out the small flame towards the back on the burner but it seems like it would be nearly impossible to get to through without some sort of breathing protection.

He can feel the burning in his throat and nose, eyes watering in an attempt to look for something, _anything_ , to put out the fire. Vaguely he can hear footsteps above his apartment, frantic and sporadic, probably a pair of clueless idiots wondering whether or not the world has finally come to an end.

 _Water! Water works, right?_ In the heat of the moment Levi goes into the bathroom and grabs the cleaning bucket from under the sink, filling it with water like his life depends on it. He hears a sound akin to that of snapping wood over the alarms and fearing the worst, quickens his attempts at filling the bucket. He hears the sound again only this time accompanied by shouting, which makes him positive the roof of the apartment has caved or that the wall now has a hole burned through causing it to collapse.

Okay, maybe he’s being a little dramatic, but either way it is a sound that makes his stomach drop.

Going as fast as his little (read as: very powerful) legs could carry him while holding a big ass bucket, he finds himself standing in the middle of his kitchen, the smoke having lessened slightly, with a very tall man, boy, person, _thing_ , standing at the stove looking at the ruined pan of eggs with disapproval.

Levi, more cautious about the strange person in his apartment – wearing only a tank top and basketball shorts, what is this guy? Twelve? – than the fact that the fire is out, doesn’t take a single step further into the room, a biting question hanging on his tongue.

But then they turn around.

Now Levi would like to think he knows a handsome face when he sees one, and he’ll be dammed that’s one _attractive fucking_ face. Perfectly sculpted jawline (rivals Erwin’s if he has anything to say about it), plump lips so round and full you’d think they were shaped out of frozen yogurt (fucking some Shakespeare material right there, this is why he’s a writer), with hair unkempt and in complete disarray but not in a ‘wow comb your fucking hair that’s nasty’ way, more like a ‘just got back from shooting a wicked porno’ kind of way. He’s dated porn star before, he knows the look.

And his eyes. Fucking hell his eyes.

Levi was pretty sure he’d never even _seen_ that color blue before. Imagine the clearest Caribbean water you can, but with hints of green and – holy shit is that gold too? 

This guy is nothing short of an Adonis by just his face alone.

Any further with this train of thought and Levi knows without a doubt he’ll be going to hell. He’s just kind of standing there staring at the hunk of a man in the middle of his kitchen and Levi’s pretty sure it’d be weird if the guy wasn’t shamelessly staring right back. He can practically feel those aquamarine eyes raking over his form, no inch of skin left unseen.

“I – uh, stopped the fire.” He says simply, his voice is higher than expected but still carries a mature note to it, an unfamiliar accent playing and mixing with each word like thick honey. Levi’s at a loss for what to say, awestruck and drawing the biggest fucking blank as to where he should take this conversation.

“You’re in my house.” He hears himself say. _All the awards! Punch me in the balls, it’d be easier than this!_ Levi doesn’t do attractive strangers. He does faceless strangers picked up at the bar on Friday night – random people he’ll never see again have sort of become his area of expertise.

Ah, but who’s to say he’ll ever see this man again?

“I’m sorry, I heard a alarm and I guess I went into autopilot.” His _fucking smile_. Goddamn that shouldn’t even be legal.

“Autopilot, what the hell does that mean?” Crass, way too crass. _Maybe if you’re lucky, he won’t spare you another minute and leave!_

He laughs a sinfully gorgeous laugh that echoes throughout the still smoking apartment. “Oh, forgive me, my name is Eren. I’m a firefighter for the city.”

Oh.

What.

What the _actual_ fuck.

“Huh?” If eloquence was a sport Levi would take the gold.

“Eren Jaeger, apartment 2e? I moved in last week?” He sounds confused now. How did he go from intimating sex god to kicked puppy in less than a minute? The tension and confusion is nearly pliable amid the thinning smoke. 2e doesn’t ring any bells.

“But how did you get in my house?” He starts, feeling more than a little stupid but above all confused as fuck, “Why are the alarms off?”

Eren shuffles for a second, still looking every bit like a sullen puppy, then his eyes flick briefly, almost incomprehensively in the direction of the front door.

Or at least, where the door used to be.

“I’m so sorry! I pay for it or fix it myself! I needed to get in though, you know to stop the fire because I hear the alarms, and you didn’t answer when I knocked so I had to use emergency measure to open the door. I apologize, my job though … ” He trails, his accent growing heavier as he rambles. Levi, impressed by this man’s strength alone, and also somewhat pissed because he has to buy a _new fucking_ door, can only gap at the foreign male’s apology.

“I uh, no it’s fine, you did what you had to … I guess.” He hardly manages to squeeze the words out. Seriously, what the fuck? What the hell would happen when Mikasa came home? How was he supposed to explain this?

They stand in awkward silence for a moment; clearly neither is sure what to do next.

“I’m going to call the landlord,” Levi finally says for lack of anything better, “You should probably … ” What, leave? Let a handsome stranger (well neighbor, never mind) just walk out?

“Go?” He finishes, “Yes, I suppose that would be best.”

 _Wait! Shit! No! Yes? Fuck!_ Levi fumbles to pull his phone out of his pocket after a couple of seconds but just before Eren is fully out the door he finds some latent reserve of courage and calls out to the retreating man.

“Eren, right?” The man nods, “Thank you. For putting out the fire,” Levi doesn’t miss the way his gorgeous eyes light up and how his smile brightens minutely, to which Levi’s heart promptly says ‘fuck you’ and decides to hit his ribs _hard_ , “And I just might have to take you up on that offer to fix the door, I don’t have the money to fix that shit.”

Reverting from kicked puppy to elated puppy, Eren smiles even larger than before and nods before adding, “Alright, I am sure I can help.”

Not trusting his face even though he’s spent years schooling it to give away too much, Levi looks down at his phone to type in the landlord’s number.

Just when he thought Eren was gone he hears the sound of footsteps somewhere off to his left. He looks up to see the man back in the empty archway of the door, wood splinters at his feet looking awfully small despite his immense size.

“I don’t even know your name, we are neighbors after all.”

“Levi,” He breathes, suddenly forgetting his own name, “Just … Levi.”

And then with another flash of brilliant white teeth he’s gone, taking all of the breath from Levi’s lungs with him.

Feeling lightheaded and oddly out of place, Levi drops the bucket he had been holding the whole damn time and slides against the wall closest to him, placing his arm across his forehead, trying to control his ragged and uneven breathing. Why the fuck does he feel like _this_? Like he’s been hit in the chest by a baseball or like he’s well … swallowed smoke. That last one is beside the point though.

He’s going to need to get this checked out by a doctor. It can’t be anything good.

Levi looks at his phone again, remembering the reason he was holding it in the first place. Landlord, right.

Boy is this going to be interesting to explain to Shadis.


End file.
